Happiest Season of All
by Night of the Living Monkey
Summary: Harley throws a Christmas dinner and invites her best friends. Not even Santa Claus can bring peace on earth to that gathering.


How's it going, folks? Sick of the Christmas spirit yet? Perhaps I can convince you to save your nausea until _after_ this fic!

* * *

Harley's Christmas plans were just like everyone else's. She'd sent out invitations for her holiday dinner, she'd decorated, and she'd gotten _adorable_ little outfits for her pets. Yes, her pets happened to be hyenas, and they'd eaten the _adorable_ little outfits in about five seconds, but besides that, totally, one-hundred percent normal.

Okay, maybe her guests weren't the most ordinary, either. She hadn't invited any family, per se, but friends were just as good! Even if all those friends were clinically insane escaped convicts who regularly got the crap beaten out of them by a giant bat due to their plans to unleash chaos upon the largest city in America.

"Would you like some wine?"

Harley turned to face the man in the chair next to hers.

All right, all right, and some of her guests spoke only in quotes by Lewis Carroll. That really wasn't so weird. There were families out there right now where someone was constantly quoting the president or a football coach or people way less interesting.

"Sure, Jervis!"

"We haven't any and you're too young," the Mad Hatter quickly replied.

"Ooh, that's really sweet of you to say, Jervis, but, and this is a total secret, I'm actually older than 21! I'd tell you to card me, but I don't have a license anymore. They take it off you the first time you get sent to Arkham for drivin' into cop cars 'cause they're harassin' your Puddin' and ruinin' your date," Harley said.

"Take some more tea," the Hatter suggested.

Across the table, the Riddler slammed down a hand. "She doesn't need to 'take some more tea' and neither does anyone else! Stop denying everyone the Cabernet Sauvignon I brought."

"That sounds super fancy and super French," Harley said.

The Riddler reached for the elegant bottle he'd provided. Before he could grab the neck, the Hatter snatched it off the table and tucked it under his chair.

"You can't treat that vintage like- like _boxed wine_!" the Riddler howled.

"Nobody asked your opinion," Jervis responded.

Nigma shot out of his chair. "You did, the moment you absconded with my wine!"

Yep, fighting and fist-waving, totally normal. Harley sighed. Maybe this was one time where her guests could be a little less normal?

"Off with their heads!" the Hatter shrieked. He grabbed a plastic spoon and brandished it at Nigma.

Nope, apparently not.

"Okay, okay, nobody's cuttin' off heads at my Christmas party," Harley said. She hopped out of her chair, hustled around the table, and snatched the spoon from the Hatter. Once he was disarmed, she grabbed the wine and passed it back to Nigma. He cradled it like a baby.

"I knew I shouldn't have sprung for anything better than Wild Irish Rose from Bob's Discount Booze," the Riddler muttered as he glared at the Hatter.

Harley had just barely diffused one attempted beheading, and the evil-eye flying back and forth across the table was bound to trigger another. She looked up and down the table for something that might intervene. Proper dinner—the best distraction of all—still had at least half an hour to left to bake. The wine, which might have induced some maudlin companionship, wasn't leaving Eddie's protective arms. And Harley and the hyenas had all already chowed down on the tea biscuits Jervis had brought.

"Who wants to play UNO?" Harley asked. "I also got Candy Land, Mouse Trap, and Chutes and Ladders."

"Do you have Trivial Pursuit?" Nigma asked, perking up.

"I used to, but Mr. J killed it after it said he wasn't the president or the pope or the capital of South Dakota."

"Of course he did," Nigma said. He shimmied the cork from his precious wine, looked at the snowman-shaped cup Harley had set before him, and settled for drinking straight from the bottle.

"Uh, does that mean you don't want to play?" Harley asked.

Nigma tipped the bottle higher.

"If you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison' it is certain to disagree with you sooner or later," Jervis observed.

"I gotta agree with Jervis on this one, Eddie. You might wanna take it easy."

The Riddler lowered the bottle, having chugged for one full breath. "If anything, I'm going to need the second bottle I left in my trunk to survive this-"

Whatever heartbreaking insult Nigma had prepared, it was drowned by the howling wind suddenly swirling through the dining room. Harley ran to shut the door, Jervis clutched onto his oversized hat to keep it from blowing away, and Bud and Lou, formerly content under the table, scurried for the much warmer space behind the couch.

Luckily for the elongated figure standing in the doorway, Harley realized she had a late guest just before she slammed the door in his face. She squealed in delight and threw herself at the newest arrival.

"Ah, Crane, I'd ask if you were fashionably late, but it's obvious no, no you are not," Nigma said languidly.

"Curiouser and curiouser!" Jervis added.

Crane, with Harley still dangling off him, struggled into the room. Here, Harley finally released her hold and dropped off like a sated tick. Now that he was sure Harley wouldn't accidentally topple him, Crane mule-kicked the door shut.

"Ivy wanted me to bring this," Crane said. He held up a reusable cloth shopping bag from the top of which sprouted several brown tassels.

"What in the hell is that?!" Nigma demanded.

"Would you like me to phrase it in a way you're more familiar with? What has ears but can't hear?" Crane said.

"I know it's corn! I mean, where do you get the audacity bringing an unprepared vegetable?! You didn't even shuck it and I-"

"Grain," Crane corrected with a smirk.

"Plant! Flora! It still has the husk on! I brought a wine far better than any of you could appreciate, and even Jervis made scones!"

"I would politely and firmly refuse any food or drink offered by the Hatter. And as for your wine, it seems like you brought it exclusively for yourself."

The negative energy that had been flowing between Eddie and Jervis had spilled over its bank and now involved Crane as well. Harley, while she didn't paste herself to Crane again, grabbed his hand and yanked him and his bag o' corn towards the kitchen.

"Come on, Professor, I'll help you with the corn!"

* * *

Removing Crane from the dining room brought the level of tension from a code red to an orange. Harley hoped Eddie and Jervis could behave for another ten or fifteen minutes. Judging by the amazing smells wafting from the oven, stove-top, and, blasphemy, the microwave, that was all the time Harley would need to deliver an amazing dinner.

"Red couldn't make it?" Harley asked as she dug in the cupboard for one more large pot.

"She sends her regrets, wishes you a happy holidays, and advises you to enjoy cheap oil while you have it," Crane said.

"Mr. J ain't gonna like havin' to drive a Prius."

"I'm sure Ivy would agree with me when I say I don't give a flying fig what that clown likes. ...Not that I enjoy invoking his name, and would sooner summon Candyman, but where is he? If he's going to come down the chimney, tell me. I refuse to be here when he arrives."

Harley shook her head sadly. "My Puddin' said he wanted to spend Christmas with B-man. And he was gonna kidnap Santa to do it! That's a line I'm not gonna cross. I don't want coal for the rest of my life!"

Crane sighed. "A fictional fat man is where you draw the line. I can't say I'm surprised. Here, I've shucked the corn."

"Wow, you're really fast, Professor Crane!" Harley gathered up the naked ears and dropped them into the pot of water. She set it to boil on the stove. "Do you want to mash the potatoes, too?"

Did he want to? Not particularly. Would he? If it kept her from crying all over him, yes, yes he would.

Neither Crane nor Harley had any Michelin Stars stars between them, but by their powers combined, they managed not to burn, drop, poison, or otherwise destroy a single dish.

"COME AND GET IT!" Harley screamed.

Bud and Lou tore from behind the couch and were the first ones to reach the kitchen. They pawed at Harley and the counter, nosing for food that was just out of reach. Crane swatted Bud's snout when the hyena nearly pulled the whole roaster of turkey onto the floor.

"Humans are served first," Crane said to the whining hyenas.

Harley disemboweled his authority by tearing the legs off the turkey and giving one to each hyena. The slobbering and crunching of bones really turned off Crane's appetite. Harley going Wookie on the turkey's limbs didn't whet it, either.

"This is a zoo," Crane said.

"I know! Ain't it great! Mr. J and I were thinkin' about gettin' a giraffe or an elephant, but we need more room," Harley replied.

Once her babies were happy, Harley moved on to serving humans. At least for them she used a knife and fork to remove meat from the carcass.

"Thank you. Really, that is enough. Please, I can't eat that in a week. It's now falling onto the floor and hyenas are swarming around my legs." Crane was forced to penguin-walk with his towering plate of dinner to the table.

"The time has come to to talk of many things: of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings," Jervis said upon catching sight of Crane's plate.

"Yes, I think cabbage is the only thing Harley didn't ladle out," Crane replied.

As though summoned, Harley popped her head through the doorway. "What's everybody else waitin' for, an invitation?"

Jervis pranced off to the kitchen and returned five minutes later with a smorgasbord crammed onto his plate. Nigma waited until the hyenas each picked a victim to beg from before he entered into the kitchen unimpeded. The moment he crossed into Harley's domain, he couldn't help but be set upon.

"Come on, Eddie, Professor Crane made these potatoes! Try 'em, try 'em!" Harley cajoled.

"You're encouraging me to ingest something prepared by the Scarecrow?" Nigma asked, eyeing the mashed potatoes as though they were a mysterious ticking package left next to a presidential motorcade.

"Yeah, why not?"

"Because- Do I really have to explain this to you? Because he's the Scarecrow! Name it, he's poisoned it! The water supply, candy, and I can't blame him for this one, but electronic cigarettes!"

Harley shook her head. "The Professor wouldn't poison his best buddies. Especially not on Christmas."

"Of course I wouldn't."

Harley yelped and turned to find Crane leaning against the door jamb. She laughed nervously and said, "See, Eddie, I told you-"

"But," Crane interrupted, "Who is truly my _best buddy_?"

"Is this a trick question? Oh, I bet it is! You're gonna say we're all your best buddy!" Harley guessed.

Crane and Nigma both stared at her. "Has anyone ever told you you're naive, child?"

Harley began counting off her fingers. "Red, the Commish, B-man, Two-Face, Killer Croc, Montoya, like twelve shrinks, and two different Robins. Phew, that's a lot of people! I wonder where they all got the idea?"

"It could be because-" Harley's bright, gleaming smile obstructed Crane's vision- "Because they're all overwhelmed by your positivity and Disneyesque response to everything in life."

"Yep, that's me! Totally glass half full. Nope, actually I'm totally glass all the way full."

"Yes, yes you are." Crane gave Harley a very, very awkward pat on the back. "I'll be enjoying my month's-worth of food if anyone needs me."

Nigma watched Crane return to the dining room. As soon as he was out of earshot, Nigma pivoted around to face Harley and her splendid feast. "I'm still not eating his potatoes or his corn."

A few minutes later, with a plate of almost sane portions he'd assembled himself, the Riddler joined Crane and Jervis at the table. The two of them had been engaged in conversation, which meant Jervis had been happily quoting nonsense at Crane, and Crane had been trying very hard not to throw Nigma's wine bottle at him.

"You don't trust me," Crane said upon catching sight of the deficits on Nigma's plate.

"I'd turn my back on Zsasz in a dark butcher shop before I'd trust you," Nigma replied.

"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk along the briny beach," Jervis interjected.

"Why don't you stay out of this, before I tell you how a gap-toothed Johnny Depp has been portraying your beloved persona!" Crane snapped.

Nigma sniffed. "That was entirely out of line."

"It seems a shame to play them such a trick!" Jervis howled.

The sounds of crashing, Jervis sobbing, and Nigma and Crane hurling insults and silverware at each other brought Harley running from the kitchen with her plate heaped merely mildly precariously. She arrived just in time to see potatoes sail through the air like a missile, and a cob return fire.

Harley looked upon the scene of open warfare, considered her options, and chose to duck across the battlefield and take a seat at the table. This was, all things considered, by no means the most dysfunctional Christmas of her lifetime. And what would the holidays be without family and all its criminally insane weirdness?

Not any holiday Harley Quinn was interested in celebrating.

* * *

The End!

Thanks for reading and have yourselves a merry winter celebration of your choosing.

Jervis' lines are from the various works of Lewis Carroll.

Wild Irish Rose is a cheap fortified wine.

Pierre is the capital of South Dakota.

Hook-for-a-hand killer Candyman can be summoned by saying his name three times.

Let the Wookie win. Words of wisdom.

In recent films, Johnny Depp has played the Mad Hatter. Not the Batman version. At all.


End file.
